From Guesstimates to GPStimates : Land Area Measurement and Implications for Agricultural Analysis

Carletto, Calogero ; Gourlay, Sydney ; Winters, Paul

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;    AGRICULTURAL INFORMATION;    AGRICULTURAL INNOVATION;    AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6550
RP-ID  :  WPS6550

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Land area measurement is a fundamentalcomponent of agricultural statistics and analysis. Yet,commonly employed self-reported land area measures used inmost analysis are not only potentially measured with error,but these errors may be correlated with agriculturaloutcomes. Measures employing Global Positioning Systems, onthe other hand, while not perfect especially on smallerplots, are likely to provide more precise measures anderrors less correlated with agricultural outcomes. Thispaper uses data from four African countries to compare theuse of self-reported and Global Positioning Systems landmeasures to (1) examine the differences between themeasures, (2) identify the sources of the differences, and(3) assess the implications of the different measures onagricultural analysis focusing on the inverse productivityrelationship. The results indicate that self-reported landareas systematically differ from Global Positioning Systemsland measures and that this difference leads to potentiallybiased estimates of the relationship between land and productivity.